Can you show me or provide a link to the perforated pan you used? If that is not possible, can you tell me the manufacturer, where the pan was purchased, and describe the pan, including its color and if it has a nonstick or anodized coating? I assume what you described is not a pizza screen. You can see a typical pizza screen at http://www.foodservicedirect.com/product.cfm/p/3782/Pizza-Screen-15in.-O.D..htm.

There are a gazillion pizza pans out there so it is hard to generalize but, in my experience in my basic electric oven, pizza pans such as you have shown, and even expensive, high-quality dark anodized perforated pizza pans, do not perform all that well in my oven. Part of the problem is that the pan has to get heated up to temperature before the bottom of the pizza can start to bake. As that is happening, the top of the pizza is getting exposed to top oven heat that causes the top part of the pizza to cook. It might be done before the bottom of the crust develops the proper, desired coloration. It has also been my experience that oven spring suffers when using a perforated pizza pan or disk in my oven. In your case, your pan looks to have a lot of unperforated metal mass at its edges. That perhaps slows down the bake and penalizes oven spring.

I also personally tend to steer away from pans that are coated with nonstick coatings that are rated for oven temperatures that are often below the oven temperatures I want to use. If the oven temperatures are too high, the pan can outgas toxic or noxious fumes if the coatings break down. Over time, after the pan has been subjected to enough bakes where it has outgassed pretty much all that it is going to, you might be OK, but I tend not to go that route. There are also many newer coatings that have been specifically designed for relatively high oven temperatures but you would have to do some research to see if you have a pan with one of such coatings. If your wife did not pay much for the pan, then it is unlikely to be one of the newer, improved coated pans that can withstand higher oven temperatures. Even then, you might not get the desired bake. I have used pizza screens for the PJ clone pizzas because that is what PJ's uses and I was trying to replicate their pizzas but in my home oven as opposed to a conveyor oven.

didn't get the nutritional facts, i'm still working on getting the ingredients list for the dough, and the sheet that lists the sizing/weight.

on the plus side, the marinara cups are not the same sauce as the pizza sauce. tomato paste vs real tomatoes. seems to be a high amount of sugar in the sauce, i suspect this is what makes the dough rise so much in the center. oven temps are rather low for pizza shop, i'm still trying to figure out a %tage of yeast.

A few years ago, I received an ingredients list from Papa John's from a woman at the PJ headquarters in Kentucky, whose name and email address I had found at a vegan website. The PJ nutrition data can be found at the PJ website.

The Dustinator ingredients list you provided represents a standard malted flour with the standard vitamin-B/iron enrichment package. What is interesting is that semolina flour is not specifically listed, as it is in the information I received from PJs. Semolina is a wheat flour so it is possible that they buried it in "wheat flour". Semolina flour is a yellow flour so it would show up in the Dustinator blend. If the current blend does not include semolina, it should look more on the white or off-white side, just like any regular flour. I don't know if it is true but I have read that the soybean oil in the Dustinator blend is to keep the flour from going airborne too much and messing up the air conditioning system.

A few years ago, I received an ingredients list from Papa John's from a woman at the PJ headquarters in Kentucky, whose name and email address I had found at a vegan website. The PJ nutrition data can be found at the PJ website.

The Dustinator ingredients list you provided represents a standard malted flour with the standard vitamin-B/iron enrichment package. What is interesting is that semolina flour is not specifically listed, as it is in the information I received from PJs. Semolina is a wheat flour so it is possible that they buried it in "wheat flour". Semolina flour is a yellow flour so it would show up in the Dustinator blend. If the current blend does not include semolina, it should look more on the white or off-white side, just like any regular flour. I don't know if it is true but I have read that the soybean oil in the Dustinator blend is to keep the flour from going airborne too much and messing up the air conditioning system.

Peter

has a color of cream. when dry, has the color of yellow cornmeal. if you are interested i can (without repercussion) obtain dustinator for your purposes.

if you are interested i can (without repercussion) obtain dustinator for your purposes.

Thank you very much but at this point my work on the PJ clones is incremental and where I am likely to post only when I think I have something useful to report. That means that the Dustinator blend would likely go bad (mainly because of the soybean oil oxidizing) before I could use enough of it. But thanks for the offer. I appreciate it.

The document I have, which I printed out in June, 2008, is similar to yours but it also has several differences. My version appears to be a version that was annotated specifically to meet the needs of vegans and others who are interested in nutrition, etc.

The document I have, which I printed out in June, 2008, is similar to yours but it also has several differences. My version appears to be a version that was annotated specifically to meet the needs of vegans and others who are interested in nutrition, etc.

that ingredient list is from 1997 sadly. PJ inc hasn't updated the ones in the stores yet. i'll get the correct sauce info straight from the can when i go back to work thursday. sure is nice having a day off mid-week. i'm curious if they changed the sauce yet again, i seem to remember that a few years ago the sauce had an almost aspartame flavor to it, and now it doesn't. un-cooked PJ sauce has an entirely different taste though, from the first minute it's open until 12 hours or later, so who knows

second note, next time you order a PJ pizza ask that the crust not be docked, if you like the puffy independent shop style. there is a few customers who ask for their pizzas not docked (among other crazy stuff; well done, light sauce, chicago cut, etc). you can finger walk the bubbles in the skin to the edge, where you can pop them from there. this is the only way i will dock a pizza, albeit personally, i get yelled at for it at times when i do it at work, but the pizzas have the 'corporate appeal' that the posters have when the crust isn't roller docked.

also i noticed the 'pizza dipping sauce' lists it as tomatoes. when it's package labeled as tomato paste on the portion cups. who knows

second note, next time you order a PJ pizza ask that the crust not be docked, if you like the puffy independent shop style. there is a few customers who ask for their pizzas not docked

bbp c0mpl3x,

I wish I had known that when I purchased my last pizza from my local PJ shop this past Saturday. When I entered the store, at around 6 PM, I saw racks of skins lined up as though they were about to get slammed. The skins in the racks, one of which was to be used to make my pepperoni pizza, had very puffy rims. That day, it was over 100 degrees F and I suspect that between the ambient temperature and being near the oven the skins were proofing big time. All of the skins had been docked unmercifully. I even watched the workers take cold dough balls from the cooler and work them over with the dockers until they could open up the dough balls to the proper size. Doing this resulted in the skins being riddled with holes from the docking. If John Schnatter saw these guys, he might have terminated their franchise agreement.

Since I bought the pizza to conduct some experiments, I took a few photos of the pizza. I have posted one of them below hoping that you can see the extensive docking. From the photos I have seen at the PJ website it appears that the rims are subjected to some docking (see, for example, http://www.papajohns.com/menu/pza_meats.shtm), but I think that the overly extensive docking detracts from the aesthetics of the pizzas, which I think detracts from the eating experience itself. The rim of my pizza was much larger than normal. That made the rim breadier than usual. My personal preference is to have the rim look more like what the PJ website shows. One unexpected positive was that the pizza had around 50 pepperoni slices as best I could count them (some were overlapping). However, the pepperoni slices were paper thin, so one might think that they are getting a lot more pepperoni than is actually the case.

Quote

also i noticed the 'pizza dipping sauce' lists it as tomatoes. when it's package labeled as tomato paste on the portion cups. who knows

When I researched the PJ red sauces some time ago, including the red dipping sauce, I was told by PJs (via email) that the dipping sauce is packaged by someone other than Stanislaus, which I understand makes the basic red sauce to go on PJ's pizzas. The red dipping sauce has chemicals in it (sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate) that I think give the dipping sauce a somewhat medicinal taste. I usually ask for extra pizza sauce on the side, not the dipping cups.

You might be interested in knowing that the most recent PJ pepperoni pizza I bought weighed 883 grams, or 31.15 ounces. I weighed the pizza in my car just outside of the store. According to the PJ nutrition data from the PJ website, a large (14") pepperoni pizza should weigh 130 grams x 8 slices = 1040 grams, or 36.68 ounces. This shortfall, which comes to 15%, prompted me to call the PJ nutrition hotline (1-888-404-7537), where I left a message inquiring as to why the disparity was so large.

Shortly thereafter, I received a return call from a woman in the R&D department of Papa John's in Louisville, KY. She told me that a 14" pizza is supposed to weigh 1040 grams, as noted in their nutrition information, but that there can be discrepancies at the store level based on the amounts of cheese and toppings that are put on the pizzas. She confessed that workers, especially new workers, don't always use the quantities of cheese and toppings that they are trained and instructed to use. When I asked her about possible variations in dough ball weights, she said that the tolerances on the dough balls are very tight and would not account for the disparity I noted. She also added that the federal regulations acknowledge that it isn't practical to get exact weights and, as a result, the regulations allow a discrepancy of +/- 20% between actual weights and nutrition data weights. She also confirmed what I had learned before that the PJ nutrition data is prepared by software with inputs from suppliers on weights of their ingredients that go into PJ pizzas. To that data is the data on the dough balls, which is strictly under PJ's control. The software, which is under PJ's control in Louisville, cranks out the nutrition data for fully baked pizzas. In fact, the woman I spoke with said that she is the one who runs the software.

As I noted in Reply 210 (at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,6758.msg107155.html#msg107155), I recently purchased another 14" pepperoni pizza from Papa John's in order to conduct further experiments. I was mainly trying to nail down the weight of dough that goes into a 14" PJ pizza. As I noted earlier, one of the first tests I conducted was to compare the finished (baked) pizza weight with the PJ nutrition data weight for that size and type of pizza. For that test, I calculated that the finished pizza weighed about 15% less than the calculated value. Knowing that I was going to weigh the baked pizza, I was attentive to how the pizza was actually made. From what I saw, the worker who made my pizza used the sauce ladle (a "Spoodle" type of ladle) correctly, and also used the portioning cups to measure out the diced cheese. In fact, I saw a whiteboard on a back wall with the words "use cups" scribbled on it to remind workers to use the portioning cups. I don't know exactly how much sauce and cheese was used, by weight, to make my 14" pizza but I have read more than once that 5 ounces of sauce is used (I assume by volume rather than by weight) and that two cups of cheese are used (maybe 8-9 ounces by weight?). However, I do not know whether those quantities are for a 12" pizza or a 14" pizza since what I read did not say.

A second test I conducted was to weigh the baked 14" PJ pepperoni pizza twice, once in my car just outside of the PJ store and again at home, after about a 7-minute ride. The difference in weight was only a loss of 3 grams. I had asked that the pizza not be cut into slices, which made it easier for me to weigh the pizza on my digital scale in the car. I sliced the pizza after I got home and put the sliced pizza on a cooling rack.

A third test I conducted came as an afterthought. After I had already eaten two slices of the pizza, it occurred to me to conduct some tests on the remaining six slices. Specifically, I scraped off all of the cheese and sauce from each slice as thoroughly as I could, and then weighed each slice, which was, in effect, only the baked dough. I then replaced the "scrapings" and reheated the slices in my toaster oven. One of the interesting observations is that there was not much left of the sauce after baking. It was reduced to a thin, somewhat dry layer, no doubt because of the loss of moisture during baking. It also seemed that there was some loss of moisture in the cheese, judging from the thinness of the cooled cheese layer on the slices.

The six "undressed" slices weighed 439 grams, or an average of 73.17 grams per slice. For the other two slices that I had already consumed, I assumed the same average undressed weight per slice, which gave me a total baked crust weight of 585.34 grams, or a total weight of 20.65 ounces. Over time, I have used from about 20-22 ounces of dough to make my PJ clones. I don't know how much weight loss there is for just a pizza crust during baking but my past tests in my oven indicate an average weight loss for complete PJ clone pizzas of around 8.5%. This is for all kinds of PJ clones, with different types and amounts of toppings.

Apart from my latest tests, I tried independently to determine the weight of a PJ dough ball for a 14" pizza by asking the workers at my local PJ store and by asking the woman I spoke with in the R&D department at PJ's headquarters in Louisville. The workers (the three I asked) had no idea. The woman at PJs said that information was proprietary. Nonetheless, I don't see anything at this point to suggest that my numbers for the dough weights I have been using for my PJ clones are off, or off by a material amount. Maybe there is another explanation somewhere that eludes me at this point, so I will remain patient with the hope that the answer will ultimately land at my doorstep.

I have access to all those ingredients except E481, E920 and Bakery Enzyme. The cornmeal is used towards the end for opening the dough just as the "Dustinator blend" is for Papa John's.

The recipe for Papa John's pizza, in relation to Domino's UK pizza, produces a thicker and softer crust; Domino's UK pizza is denser, thinner and chewier.

Off the cuff, what would you alter to produce a denser, thinner and chewier crust? I understand a higher protein flour could be used, I have access to a 14.7% protein flour.

Next week, and for the coming weeks, I'll be treating this as an investigation with the goal of replicating Domino's UK pizza in a home setting just as you have done with Papa John's pizza. I've attached a few pictures of Domino's UK 13.5" pizza for comparison. Practically, the pizza fits perfectly on my 14" screen.

From the above ingredients list, it appears that Domino's in the UK is using a somewhat different formulation than in the U.S.

If you were to use one of the PJ dough clone recipes I posted with the objective of getting a denser, thinner and chewier crust, I would be inclined to use a high-protein flour such as a high-gluten flour, less oil and sugar, and a lower thickness factor value. A flour with a protein content of 14.7% would be considered high in the U.S., and I am sure that PJ's in the U.S. would not be using a flour with that high a protein content. Can you tell me what brand of flour has that protein value in the UK? A thinner crust profile might also be produced if sheeters or dough presses are used in the course of forming the skins. I don't believe the Domino's in the U.S. uses such machines.

By reducing the oil, the effective hydration would also be lowered. However, the finished dough has to be workable and produce the desired degree of extensibility. So, some adjustment to the amount of water and oil may be needed to achieve that desired result. If you have access to a high-heat baker's grade of dairy whey, it would make sense to use some in your Domino's clone dough. It is possible that the crust coloration shown in the photo you posted is due to the combination of sugar and dairy whey. Dairy whey is often used for crust coloration purposes because of its lactose content. Lactose will induced browning but is not used by the yeast as food. It also has one of the lowest sweetness factors of all simple sugars so it won't add much sweetness to the finished crust beyond that provided by the sugar used in the dough.

Bakery amylase is most likely barley malt or another form of amylase. In the U.S., most flours are malted.

I assumed the whey used in the pizza was of the same nature as the whey protein found in bodybuilding shops. I've enquired about ordering a small batch of dairy whey from a dairy company in the UK. In the meantime, I'd like to experiment with something more readily available as a substitute for dairy whey: dry milk powder.

I'll be using your 2-day Papa John's clone as a model.

For my first few pizzas no dry milk powder will be added. Taking into account what you've said, first formulation:

I will try to address your questions as best I can but I suggest that you start a new thread on the subject so that we don't steer this thread in a new direction.

I am familiar from my reading with the two flours you mentioned. Nominally, it may appear that the Sainsbury's Very Strong Canadian Bread Flour has a protein content of 14.7% and that the Allinson Premium Very Strong White Bread Flour has a protein content of 13.9%, but it is possible that the protein values are those used in Europe as opposed to North America (see, for example, the article at http://web.archive.org/web/20060507221142/http://kingarthurflour.com/stuff/contentmgr/files/15ec5c94af1251cdac2d7a25848f0e27/miscdocs/Flour+Guide.pdf). I can't be sure of this but I mention it as a possibility. It is also possible that some rounding factors are involved in the recitation of the nutrition information. However, I think both flours should work for your purpose even if the protein values are somewhat on the high side.

The dried dairy whey you will want to use is a high-heat baker's grade whey. That form of whey is commonly sold by bakery suppy companies but in the U.S. it is often sold in small quantities at the retail level. The whey used for bodybuilding may not be the same.

With respect to the olive oil in the dough formulation you posted, if you mean to substitute another oil for the olive oil, that oil should be canola oil, which is the same thing as rapeseed oil in the Domino's UK ingredients list you posted. Since the expanded dough calculating tool at http://www.pizzamaking.com/expanded_calculator.html does not include sunflower seed oil as a listed ingredient, I would use vegetable oil a proxy for calculation purposes since a teaspoon of vegetable oil weighs about the same as a teaspoon of sunflower seed oil. However, if the order of the Domino's ingredients is by descending weight, as would be the case in the U.S., the predominant oil by baker's percent should be the canola oil.

Baking powder is not the same as ascorbic acid. Ascorbic acid is Vitamin C. Ascorbic acid is not an ingredient listed in the expanded dough calculating tool because its use would be in parts per million, which you would not be able to measure out in any accurate way. If you choose to use some ascorbic acid, I would use a small pinch between the thumb and forefinger.

Taking all of the above into account, and assuming a pizza size of 13.5", a thickness factor of 0.107, and a bowl residue compensation (which you ignored) of 1.5%, I come up with the following dough formulation (with some of the oil names changed to reflect your actual case):

Since my numbers are quite a bit different from yours, you might want to double check them against what you did in case I made an error somewhere.

My practice in making the PJ clones has been to have the combined baker's percents for the water and oil be approximately equal to the rated absorption value for the flour used. I think the values noted above come close to that objective but you may want to hold back some of the water and add it back in if the dough needs it to achieve the desired finished dough condition. A total oil quantity of 5.5% and sugar at 3.2% are still on the high side and may still yield a soft and tender crust texture despite the use of a stronger flour. You might try them as an initial experiment to see how they work out but be prepared to lower their values if you don't get the denser crust you are looking for.

Thanks Peter, I'll give that formulation a try and report the results next week.

Even though the Expanded Pizza Dough Calculator doesn't have fields for ascorbic acid and sunflower oil, I instead used the input fields of olive oil and baking soda for the percentage calculation (I assumed every input field had the same basic percentage calculation).

To note, in the UK, many oils titled "Vegetable Oil" list rapeseed oil as their sole ingredient; I've come across canola oil before, but I hadn't realized it was another name for rapeseed oil.

Even though the Expanded Pizza Dough Calculator doesn't have fields for ascorbic acid and sunflower oil, I instead used the input fields of olive oil and baking soda for the percentage calculation (I assumed every input field had the same basic percentage calculation).

james456,

The weights of the ingredients other than flour are based on a percent of the formula flour but the conversions from weights to volume measurements are different for the different ingredients (although some of the oil conversions are the same).

I saw a new thread at the PMQ Think Tank today in which some of the members discuss how Papa John's ships dough balls that may be frozen. According to the thread, the practice that Papa John's allegedly follows is to ship dough balls at 32 degrees F, or just below freezing, allowing them to say in its ads that its dough balls are fresh. I wouldn't be surprised if some dough balls do actually freeze, most likely unintentionally, on their way to their destination in refrigerated trucks. The thread also notes that dough balls are not supposed to be held beyond seven days in the stores. Although I used a window of five days for the original PJ dough clone, as discussed in Reply 2 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,6758.msg58197.html#msg58197, in Reply 1 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,6758.msg58196.html#msg58196 I estimated a window of 6-8 days. So, seven days fits right in the middle of that range.

I personally haven't tried freezing PJ clone dough balls but I don't see any reason why they can't be frozen, at least for brief periods. Knowing in advance that I want to freeze the dough balls, I would perhaps increase the amount of yeast by 50-100%.

While searching for something else at the Middleby Marshall website, I came across a video of John Schnatter, the founder of Papa John's, in which he discusses the merits of the WOW! conveyor oven from Middleby Marshall that his company uses in its stores, or at least many of the newer ones. The video can be accessed by going to http://www.middleby.com/corp_contact.htm, then clicking on Company Overview + Video! (at the top of the page), and then clicking on John Schnatter, Papa John's (under Middleby Media Center).

The WOW! video under the Middleby Media Center is also an interesting video on the WOW! oven.

As one might suspect, it is hard to get a standard home oven to behave like a conveyor oven like the WOW! oven. There is no way that I can bake a Papa John's clone pizza in my home oven in about 5 minutes, even a basic PJ clone pizza without a lot on it. My longer bake will result in greater weight losses during baking. That is one of the reasons why I increased the dough ball weight a bit over time above the original 21-ounce dough ball weight that I started out with in Reply 2 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,6758.msg58197.html#msg58197. I was trying to get my PJ clones to match the weights of the real PJ pizzas as given at the PJ website. I later learned (as previously reported) that a real PJ pizza can vary from the stated weights (under the Nutrition Facts) by plus or minus 20% (as permitted by government regulations). So, slight dough ball weight variations will almost always fall within the 20% variance.

This is a lot of useful information, but where is the actual recipe for your clone? Should I go back to your original reverse engineering thread? Also, have you tried to make the sauce they used when they were still selling the pan pizza. I found that sauce and pizza much better than their other offerings and have gone to PJ much less since they stop selling it

This is a lot of useful information, but where is the actual recipe for your clone? Should I go back to your original reverse engineering thread? Also, have you tried to make the sauce they used when they were still selling the pan pizza. I found that sauce and pizza much better than their other offerings and have gone to PJ much less since they stop selling it

I did not attempt to reverse engineer and clone the PJ sauce that PJ used for its now defunct pan pizzas. I only tried to reverse engineer and clone the sauce used by PJ when I commenced my reverse engineering/cloning effort, using a small sample of that sauce. I described my results, using different possible tomatoes, at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,6633.msg56931.html#msg56931.